


No Dawn, No Day

by Tierfal



Series: Leading the Blind [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, Schmoop, Snow and Ice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 00:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which it is Sunday, and Roy has a lot of things to be grateful for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Dawn, No Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starlitpurple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlitpurple/gifts).



> I would not advise reading this alone, as it's the sequel to the sequel! XD
> 
> StarlitPurple wanted something wintery and adorable, and hopefully even though my recent writing makes me want to crawl into a hole and _die_ , this is fluffy enough to deliver. ♥;
> 
> Title ganked from [Cosmic Love](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfBY96qxVRQ) again, because titles are hard. .___.

A nudge of an automail toe to Roy’s shin wakes him, but he doesn’t open his eyes. If he keeps his eyes closed, he can pretend a little longer that it will _matter_ when he lifts his eyelids; that the world will illuminate; that pale light will spill across the room to herald a fresh start, a new beginning, an opportunity to make it all right…

A warm body— _the_ warm body, the _only_ warm body—wriggles in against him, and an arm flops across his chest, fingers dangling against his ribs. Ed fits his cheek in against Roy’s shoulder and sighs out a breath, which Roy will never tell him is almost identical to the sound the dog makes while dreaming. Ed’s breathing evens out again; he’s not awake. He’s just cold. He’s just cold and comfortable, and he feels safe with all of his limbs draped over Roy’s, and that is…

Wondrous. Inexplicable. The reason that any of this is possible, really.

Roy listens to Ed’s steady breath. For a moment, he wonders why he doesn’t hear Hitomi, and then he remembers that she’s sleeping in the living room—she has one round, insulated dog bed here in the bedroom, and a second out there. She seems to recognize the signs almost before Roy and Ed do; he’s heard that canines can smell fear, which probably means that they scent adrenaline, so he suspects that Hitomi routinely identifies the particular cocktail of testosterone and endorphins that means her master intends to spend some time rolling gracelessly on the bed with his favorite fellow human. Roy felt slightly guilty the first time they exiled her from the bedroom of this new apartment, but they woke the next morning to Alphonse squealing loudly upon discovering that every single one of his cats had curled up in Hitomi’s bed with her.

Roy should get up. Is it Sunday? That would explain the fact that the alarm clock is ticking gently instead of bleating into his ear. He should go back to sleep. He should sleep forever. He should dream flickering images of Ed’s hair, Ed’s eyes, Ed’s fingertips, the skin of his stomach, the curve of his back.

It’s not Roy’s fault; none of it’s Roy’s fault. He never asked for this, because he was too clever and not wise enough. He didn’t realize that this kind of love _existed_ —this die-for, kill-for, crave-like-water-in-the-desert love; the kind of love that simple people have in storybooks; the kind worth dragging yourself out of bed in the mornings for, because on the balance of your life it outweighs the endless atrocities, the frustrations, the crushing logical likelihood that you will fail.

And it certainly wasn’t Roy’s fault last night—Ed called the office phone at six-thirty, all light-voiced innocence, saying, “It’s _Saturday night_ , you asshole, come home. Al’s at a thing, and I got takeout, which is gonna get cold if you don’t hurry your ass up. And I kinda lost my pants. You should come help me find ’em. Or, y’know… not.”

It’s not Roy’s fault that he made it from desk to doorstep in record time, or that he didn’t even have to _see_ Ed wandering the apartment sans trousers in order to have an urge to jump him that could not wait for sustenance. It was easy to reheat the food anyway. And then Roy had the energy to jump Ed _again_ , which rounded out the perfect start to a night off.

Ed’s breath hitches. He stirs, and then he mumbles, and then he sits up, leaving his palm planted on Roy’s chest.

Roy opens his eyes. The darkness doesn’t change.

“G’morning,” Ed says.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Roy says.

Ed pokes at Roy’s sternum in what seems to be a reprimanding way. “You’re blind, and I’ve got morning hair.”

Roy tries to swallow the smile. “I fail to _see_ your point.”

“General Roy Mustang,” Ed says, “you are a dumbass.”

The mattress shifts, the sheets whisper, Ed’s fingers spread, and Ed’s mouth covers Roy’s. This is what morning means, now—no light, no sunshine, no dawning glow of possibility; just this. Just the simple promise that Ed is here and will be here again tomorrow.

“You taste gorgeous,” Roy says when Ed draws back and exhales contentedly.

“I hope you can hear me rolling my eyes,” Ed says.

“I _have_ been making a concerted effort to attune my ears to the frequency of your facial muscles, so perhaps—”

Ed’s stomach growls startlingly loudly.

“…huh,” Ed says.

Roy follows the lines of Ed’s chest upward with his fingertips in order to tug gently on a lock of hair. “Breakfast it is. Direct me to enough clothing that I won’t scandalize your brother?”

“I don’t think it’s possible to freak Al out anymore,” Ed says, climbing over Roy to reach the edge of the bed instead of sliding off the other side. “I dunno if it’s ever been possible to freak him out, but at this point he’s seen pretty much everything.”

Roy stretches slowly, arching his back off of the bed far more than is strictly necessary, and drops his voice to a slightly lower register. “He hasn’t seen us eating breakfast off of each _other_.”

A pile of terrycloth lands on Roy’s face.

“We’d have to put down plastic first,” Ed says. He pauses while Roy attempts to unearth his own visage from under the crumpled bathrobe. “Then again, you _would_ look pretty appetizing covered in jam.”

Roy struggles into the robe. He’s fairly sure sleeves were not this complicated back when he had his sight. “I’ll add it to the shopping list.”

“Mm, or maple syrup. I could have a Roy pancake.”

“Does that make you the short stack?” Roy asks, and he deserves to get Ed’s pajama bottoms thrown at his head.

 

 

“Good morning,” Alphonse says, less chirpily than is his wont. “Watch your right foot, General—” The warm thing that meets Roy’s ankle mews unhappily, but he manages to stop fast enough not to kick whichever feline this is. “Oh, dear.”

“Sorry,” Roy says. No matter how much has gone extraordinarily, unexpectedly _right_ , there are some things that will never settle. Roy Mustang is not supposed to be the sort of man who trips over cats on his way into the kitchen. Forsaking dignity in certain situations is one thing; having it snatched away with all of the other losses is entirely another. It’s still hard—and it will always be hard—not to be in control.

There’s a faint _patt_ ing against the carpet, and then there’s a damp nose against his palm. Roy always strokes Hitomi’s ears particularly thoroughly when he gets jostled into this frame of mind; today is no exception as she shepherds him gently into a chair.

“Here,” Al says, still somewhat quietly, and two objects clink down on the tabletop. “The equivalent exchange for me making you lazy lovebirds coffee is that you keep your voices down so that this hangover doesn’t _kill_ me.”

“Jeez, Al,” Ed says, unperturbedly lifting Roy’s hand and wrapping his fingers around the handle of a mug. “If those stupid university friends are a bad influence—”

“First of all,” Al says, “the mere fact that they aren’t conversant in the tenets of advanced theoretical alchemy does not make them ‘stupid’. Second, they’re not _bad_. I was just having fun. I knew I was having a bit too much fun; I calculated my blood alcohol content, anticipated that this morning would feel like this, and consciously continued. It was an informed decision.”

Sometimes, to amuse and terrify himself, Roy wonders what the Elrics and their unrelentingly scientific brains were like as children. He’s always meant to ask Pinako Rockbell how many local schoolteachers quit during the years that Ed and Alphonse were enrolled.

“Okay,” Ed says, laboring just a little over the syllables. “I mean—as long as you’re careful. I mean—I just… worry about you. That’s all.”

“I know, Brother.”

“Just don’t be a reckless little shit.”

“Like you always were?”

“Exactly, smartass. If you learn from my mistakes, you don’t have to make your own. That’s what big brothers are _for_.”

“That explains a lot,” Roy says mildly, and duly accepts the punch to the shoulder.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Ed says, “be responsible and stuff.”

“Yes, Brother.”

“And can we not treat this place like a cave?” His chair scrapes back, and his metal foot knocks against the wooden frame, and then his voice moves off towards the wall. “It’s everybody’s day off, and it looks like a friggin’ mausoleum in here.”

“Brother, please d—”

Curtains swish, and little plastic rings rattle, and the wall glows dully at the edge of the darkness.

“Holy shit!” Ed says. “First snow!”

“Oh, my _head_ ,” Alphonse groans.

“Hey, come on! Snow!”

“Yes, Brother, it’s an amazing phenomenon as part of the water cycle, and will you _shut the curtai_ —”

A swish, and a rattle, and Ed is bounding off down the hall. “I’m getting my coat!”

Hitomi whuffs out a slightly bewildered noise, and Roy scratches behind her ear encouragingly.

“Is it like this every year?” he dares to ask.

“It’s worse when we don’t get any snow,” Alphonse says. “He sulks until spring.”

“I see.”

“…I can’t still believe Brother got you started on sight puns.”

Ed started a lot of things in Roy—jumpstarted them, kickstarted them. And even when the black fog closes in so tight Roy thinks he’ll suffocate, the low thrum of Ed’s heartbeat guides him home.

“It wouldn’t be the first time he’s performed a miracle,” Roy says.

Ed’s footsteps careen back out into the kitchen. “Are you guys gonna sit there and talk all day? There’s _snow_!” Both of Ed’s hands seize Roy’s left wrist and drag him out of his chair and towards the door. “C’mon, c’mon—”

“Ed—” Roy attempts.

“ _Snow_ , Roy!”

“The general isn’t wearing any pants,” Alphonse says.

“Fuck pants!”

That principle Roy might just be able to get on board with.

Ed’s dragging guides Roy’s rather cold bare feet over to the rug by the door, where Ed pauses to make a tremendous racket that may involve donning boots. The door hinges creak, and there’s a rush of horrifically cold air that doesn’t quite drown out the sound of Ed’s delighted gasp.

It also doesn’t drown out the sound of his galloping down the front steps and onward into the crunching mass of snow, the glare off of which is making Roy’s whole field of not-quite-vision hazily gray.

Hitomi pads up and pushes her head underneath his hand. He curls his toes against the cold and scratches at the thick fur around her neck.

“It’s just snow,” he says. “Go play with Ed if you want—go on, girl.” He pats her back. “Go play.”

She shuffles a little at his side, noses at his knee, and starts tentatively out over the threshold. After one inquisitive half-bark at what must be the first step onto snow, he hears her bounding around as avidly as Ed.

The frigid air prickles on his skin, chasing goosebumps up his legs. Aside from the rampaging joy, it is that unique kind of snowfall-silence—the hush of heavy branches; the muffling thickness of the snowbanks; the crystalline air.

He can’t quite remember how it looks. The details are gone. The individual flakes must sparkle like so many gleams of starlight; the barren trees must bow beneath the weight. Is it cloudy still, or is the sky a stark blue, like—what else is blue like the sky used to be?

Hitomi must be leaving delicate indentations of her pawprints in the smoothly-shining white. Ed’s probably tromping; his hair must still be undone; it will be trailing everywhere as he galumphs his way around the yard. He must be radiant against the world’s pallor, but Roy can’t…

Roy can _never_ …

“General,” Alphonse says, touching his elbow. “Come on back inside. You can’t afford to get pneumonia. He’ll wear himself out in a few minutes, and you didn’t even finish your coffee.”

“I suppose not,” Roy says.

Alphonse is right, of course; Alphonse is being rational. Roy lets Alphonse lead him over to sit on the couch, cover him with a blanket, set a cat beside him, and bring him his coffee mug. It is a great deal warmer and more comfortable over here.

“It’s difficult,” he says over Hitomi’s unusual barking and Ed’s uproarious laughter from outside. “It’s difficult to accept that I am… handicapped… in so many ways. That there’s so much I’ve lost, and so much that I’ve lost the ability to appreciate. I don’t want to feel like this about it—I know that I’m extraordinarily fortunate in all the ways that actually matter, but sometimes… it’s the little things. Sometimes the little things collect until their combined weight pulls me down. I know it’s ungrateful, to say the least; I don’t want to feel like this, but I can’t… stop it. The only thing in my power is to wait it out, and having no alternative to patience makes it worse.”

The rug scuffs, and the cushion creaks as Alphonse sits down beside him.

“I know a lot about patience,” the younger Elric says. “It’s… it is rewarding, eventually.”

He’s silent for a while. Roy sips at the coffee, which by some godsend is still warm.

“Ed loves you,” Alphonse says. “It’s a pillar of his life now; it’s an incontrovertible fact of his existence.”

“He could have had a future,” Roy says. “He could have had anything in the world he wanted, and I trapped him _here_ —”

“Stop,” Alphonse says quietly. “The only thing in the world that he wanted was _you_. This is the first thing in his life that he has ever done for _himself_. He chose this. And he hasn’t been this happy since we were children.”

Roy rubs his eyes, which of course does nothing. “I—am happy. Here, like this; I _am_ , but I can’t…”

“I know,” Alphonse says. “Being happy at a basic level, and being appreciative of that, doesn’t mean you’re always going to be walking on air. And you don’t want Ed to see a downswing, because he’ll think it’s his fault—but it’s not. It’s just… life.”

Roy finds the edge of the end table and sets the coffee down, freeing both hands to press against his face. “Just life,” he says.

Alphonse shifts the cat into Roy’s lap and leans companionably in against his shoulder.

“Drink your coffee, sir,” he says.

Roy does.

It helps.

 

 

By the time Roy has showered, dressed, settled on the couch again, petted the closest cat, and thought about newspapers for a minute or two, Ed’s attention span has evidently run out, as he comes clomping back into the entryway.

“Two pieces of news!” he says. “The dog likes eating snowballs, and I can’t feel my hands!”

Hitomi pads over, nails clicking, tags clinking, and nudges her extremely cold nose and damp head at Roy’s hand.

“Have you been eating snowballs?” he asks, rubbing at her fur. “Or is that dastardly boy of mine maligning you again?” Hitomi huffs moist breath against his hand and sets her chin on his knee. “Good girl,” he murmurs, stroking down her back.

“C’mon, Roy,” Ed says. What must be the boots thunk against the wall. “We’ve got a perfectly good fireplace, and we never use it, and I’m _cold_.”

“Maybe,” Alphonse says idly, “you wouldn’t be quite as chilly if you’d skipped the snow angels, Brother.”

“You can take your hungover logic and shove it up your—”

“That,” Roy says, skimming the edge of his breast pocket with a fingertip and delving his hand into the opening, “is a fine idea, Ed.” He draws the glove out, bracing himself against the couch arm with his free hand. Hitomi is immediately prepared to move. “Is there anything remotely resembling firewood?”

“There’s about to be.”

Hitomi leads the way over to the modest construction of brick and tile in the entryway, which Roy has run his hands over a few times before, wondering vaguely about the colors. He might well live in a hideously unmatched home and not even know. “That sounded decidedly ominous.”

“What about me with a hatchet could possibly go wrong?” Ed asks. “ _Ha_ , your face. I’m just fuckin’ around, jeez—Armstrong keeps bringing firewood for us, and nobody can figure out why or where he gets it from. Smells good, though.”

Roy kneels and sits carefully on the cold tile as a series of hollow wood-and-iron noises emanate from the fireplace, and Hitomi settles with her body half-curled around him, her tail brushing gently against the small of his back. Ed was right; the firewood smells so deliciously sharp that Roy’s head fills instantly with vistas of sweeping pine forests and crisp mountain nights. The flue creaks open. Cinders rain softly.

Ed drops down on Roy’s other side, and whatever socks he threw on in his haste to leap out into the snowbanks can’t silence the clink of his automail foot on the tile. “That should be good,” he says. “Go ahead and do your party trick.”

“Where is your flare for the dramatic when I actually want it?” Roy asks. He leans forward, trailing his ungloved fingers across the floor until he reaches the ash-smeared brick and, just beyond it, the andiron laden with kindling. He grazes his fingertips over the sawdust and the thin, crumpled paper, and then he sits back, focusing hard on his mental measurement of the distance. He draws a deep breath, considers the relative humidity here in the house, closes his unhelpful eyes, and snaps. He hears the flame catch the wood’s flesh, and then he opens his eyes again to gauge the blurry reddish glow.

Ed leans in against his side, head dropping onto his shoulder; tangled hair draggles down against Roy’s shoulder-blade.

“Huh,” Ed says.

This is one thing Roy does not have to see; this is one thing that will never fade in memory. The orange will dart and twist and dip and swerve, feathered edges in flux, like a dance of ghosts; the heart is not the blue of a stiffly-starched uniform; it is a blue not quite like anything.

“Mm?” Roy prompts as Ed shifts and tries to make resting against a collarbone comfortable somehow.

“That was hot,” Ed says. “Get it?”

“I don’t know how you two live with yourselves,” Alphonse says, approaching at a cautious pace. “I should’ve put more marshmallows in this; maybe you wouldn’t be able to talk around them.”

“You’re the best little brother in the universe, Al,” Ed says warmly, his arms stretching away and then folding back.

“And don’t you forget it,” Alphonse says. “I’m going to take a nap. If you spill cocoa on any of the cats, so help me, I _will_ evict you both.”

“Understood,” Roy says, because Ed is already slurping. “Sleep well.”

“Thank you, General,” Alphonse says, and his footfalls retreat, and a door shuts quietly.

“You better have some of this,” Ed says, raising Roy’s hand to a large, warm mug. “It’s the way our mom used to make it, with half again as much of the cocoa powder as you’re supposed to use. If you don’t drink some now, I’ll finish the whole fucking thing inside of a minute.”

“I always suspected that there was space enough for you inside a minute,” Roy says, and he manages not to choke on his sip of magnificent cocoa-sludge when Ed elbows him in the ribs.

It’s not perfect—of course it’s not; they’re not; nothing is. They are both missing things they want, but they have both found a way to love, and between the two of them they have everything they need.

Ed is warmer than the fire as he nestles in and repossesses the cocoa mug. He’s always warm; it’s like he generates his own sunlight.

“Bastard,” he says idly, slurping a bit more. “Aw, crap, cat incoming.”

Delicate paws climb over Roy’s bent legs and into his lap. “I seem to be stuck here,” he says.

“You know you like it,” Ed says.

Strangely, and not so strangely, that’s the truth.


End file.
